If you don’t want spam, never post your email address on the Internet (or in your MailChimp emails).

Why You Shouldn’t Post Your Email Address

Spammers use computer software to search for the @ sign in order to harvest your email address. (Because I’m using the symbol in this post, I’ll get more hits.) They might also be searching for the “mailto:” HTML code for your email link. That is, whenever you click a link that opens your email program to compose an email, the hidden computer instructions for that is, “mailto:”. Spammers will find this even though you don’t see it.

And what about MailChimp? Every MailChimp email you send also resides on the Internet. Ever notice that “view in your browser link” that’s usually in the upper right of an email? Your friend clicks to read your email in a browser; your spammer’s software collects your email address off the Internet if it’s in the content of your newsletter.

What to Do

WordPress.com support recommends you use a contact form on your blog or website for people to reach you, but if you’d like to put your email address on a webpage (or that’s your only option), try one of these work-arounds using spaces or spelling out “at”:

1. first.last at ministry.org
2. bloggername at blog dot com

Your friend won’t be able to just click and send you an email, but it’s only a little extra effort for them to translate your code into a working email address. It’s worth it to you to limit spam on your website or coming into your inbox.

You might also make an image of your email address. I’ve done this for my phone numbers in my email signature, too. Here’s your easy steps:

• create a signature with your name and email address for your blog or MailChimp letters,
• take a screenshot,
• crop it down to size,
• insert that image for your closing signature.

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